iraf.net

I am running IRAF and apextract, and I am in the directory with my spec data, but I cannot get the command 'display' to work. I type display spec0159.a.fits, and it comes back with:
ERROR: connot open device (node!imtool,,512,512)I have a ds9 SAOImage open. How do I get past this?

By default, IRAF will try to display to a unix socket based on the user-id, and if that fails will fall back the the /dev/imt1[io] fifo pipes. You see the 'cannot open device' message when both of these fail either because the devices don't exist or the display server isn't listening to them.On some systems the fifo pipes aren't created at install time (or aren't supported at all)., and depending on your IRAF version and OS you may not have a graphcap that specifies the unix socket to use. This is especially true of early Cygwin/IRAF releases, a Forum search on "cygwin AND display AND graphcap" should turn up an answer, otherwise please tell me more about your system and IRAF version.Cheers,
-Mike

I am running on Vista, using Cygwin. IRAF version: "IRAFNET PC-IRAF Revision 2.13-Beta 2 Wed Apr 19 21:21:13 MST 2006" Vista seems to be supporting both well. I am new to IRAF, and I have only some basic knowledge or UNIX. I don't understand what a fifo pipe or a graphcap is and I do not know how to check to see if I have them. If I do not, where can I go to download them?

Also, I am on SAOImage ds9 version 5

This was fixed to be automatic in the V2.14 release. Cygwin doesn't support unix sockets and so you need to force IRAF and DS9 to talk on the inet socket running on port 5137. To do this, do the following before logging into the CL:[code:1:3e37f3ec42]export IMTDEV="inet:5137:127.0.0.1" [/code:1:3e37f3ec42]You should then be able to display.Cheers,
-Mike

that did work thanks, but I had to run the command twice (once after logout of CL). Not sure why, but I did get the desired result.

OK, on the same topic, I now have a working display command, the next command I need is implot. When I run: Command: implot spec0159.a.fitsI should see a 2D image with a red cursor. I actually get a bunch of numbers, letters, and symbols that take up the whole window. No image ever appears, and IRAF seems to be hung (ie, I never get a command line back and I cannot type anything more in the window)How do I fix this?

Garbage output on the screen always means that there is a mis-match between the type of terminal you are using, and the type of terminal IRAF thinks you're using. Note that for graphics your choice is either XTerm or XGterm, when you do a MKIRAF you are asked for the terminal type and you should reply 'xterm' or 'xgterm' appropriately. Gnome-terminals, rxvt, kde-term, cannot be used -- you must actually login to iraf through a running xterm/xgterm.-Mike

Implot is working, thank you

Wow, I must be the biggest dummy on this site: Now that I have figured out how to run implot, I cannot proceed with commands within implot (ie the command :c 390 990). The window where I typed implot seems to be frozen... I cannot type in itwhile the display is running, and killing the display (which resulted from implot) does not bring me a command prompt.How do I fix this?

It might be something to do with Cygwin under Vista, but most commonly this is a "focus policy" issue with the X windows, e.g. you need to click on the border of the graphics window to give it focus so it will read the cursor. The same thing applies to reading the image cursor and clicking on the DS9 window. The focus policy can be changed to follow the mouse, but I'm traveling at the moment and can't access the machine that would remind me how to do that.In XGterm when the cursor read is active, you should see a fullscreen crosshair cursor on the window.Cheers,
-Mike